Korean Fried Chicken
Korean fried chicken is one of my favorite styles of fried chicken. Super crispy and intensely flavorful - an amazing blend of sweet, salty, sour, and savory. The fried chicken at Anytime NYC was amazing and motivated me to give this a try. It's a bit time-consuming and messy, but absolutely worth the effort. I'm pleasantly surprised by the results and would definitely recommend giving this a try for a party dish!
Active Time: 30 min
Total Time: 45 min
Ingredients
Fried chicken:
> chicken drumsticks/wings
> potato starch
> salt, pepper, ginger, oil
Sauce:
> garlic, scallions
> soy sauce (1/4 cup), rice vinegar (1 tbsp), honey (1/4 cup), gochujang (2-3 tbsp), oil
> sesame seeds
Instructions
1. In a mixing bowl, add minced garlic, pepper, and a little bit of salt (around 1/3 of what you'd normally use) to the chicken. Mix thoroughly.
2. Coat each of the chicken wings/drumsticks with potato starch. Shake off the excess.
3. Fry the chicken in hot oil. Total time will depend on the size of your chicken pieces, but somewhere in the vicinity of 7-15 minutes seems reasonable. For longer frying times, consider splitting the frying process into two and double-frying it to achieve a crispier exterior.
4. Make the sauce by first lightly frying the garlic in a bit of oil. Then add the soy sauce, vinegar, honey, gochujang, and mix thoroughly. Gently reduce until you have a somewhat thick sauce.
5. Mix the chicken in with the sauce until completely coated. Top with thinly sliced scallions and (optional) sesame seeds. Serve and enjoy!
Notes/Tips:
> Most recipes will probably call for rice syrup or corn syrup; I don't have it so I substituted honey for this. Traditionally I think it's made with mulyeot.
> Try to ensure that each piece of chicken in a batch is similar in size, so that they cook in the same amount of time in the oil. If you have multiple different sizes (I had small wings/drumsticks, as well as very large drumsticks), consider splitting it into multiple batches. This will also save some oil as you can use a smaller pot.
> If your chicken pieces are relatively large, consider double-frying the chicken by splitting the cooking time into two. This will yield a slightly crispier chicken. For small pieces of chicken, you probably don't have enough cook time to effectively double-fry.
> Make sure the oil is quite hot. There isn't a lot of batter for this recipe, so in order to achieve the crispy exterior you really need to make sure the oil is quite hot, more so than other fried dishes.
> The sauce is where you can innovate the most and adjust to your taste. Looking for the classic soy garlic flavor? Cut out the gochujang and some of the honey. Add more gochujang for more spice. Regardless, you want the sauce to end up somewhat thick and sticky, like a glaze.
> Any chicken pieces work -- you could even use a whole chicken cut into individual components for more variety. I personally prefer pieces with a bone (i.e. no breast) -- more flavor and more of an "experience" eating off the bone.